2 Corinthians 3

₁Must we start again and tell you who we are and why you must believe us? No, we do not need letters like other people, from you or from others, to say that we may preach to you. ₂You are our letter. Christ wrote this letter on our hearts. Everyone knows this letter and reads it. ₃You show that you are a letter of Christ and Christ has used us to write this letter. We did not write this letter on paper with ink. No, the Spirit of God, who lives, wrote it. He did not write it on stones. He wrote it on people's hearts.

₄We know this is true, and we say it before God, because we belong to Christ. ₅We say this not because we think that we are very good, but because God has made us good enough to do his work. ₆God made us good enough to tell people about the new covenant. You can not write this covenant on paper. No, the Holy_Spirit wrote it. Words on paper bring death, but the Spirit brings life.

₇The words of the old covenant were written on stones, and Moses had to read those words to the people of Israel. But that covenant did not give life to God's people. It told them only about death. That covenant came to them with the light and glory of God. Moses' face was as bright as a shining light and the people of Israel could not look at him. But the bright light of that covenant is dying now. ₈The work of the Spirit of God is even more wonderful. ₉The old covenant that spoke about how God punishes people was wonderful, but the covenant that tells us how God makes people righteous is even more wonderful. ₁₀The new covenant is so great and wonderful that the old covenant with Moses now doesn't look so wonderful at all. ₁₁The old covenant has passed but it was wonderful then. That is why we know that the new covenant that will stay forever is even more wonderful.

₁₂We are so sure of God's promise in this new covenant that we are not afraid to preach. ₁₃We are not like Moses who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could not see that the time of that covenant was almost over. ₁₄God closed the eyes of the Israelites and made them stubborn. When they read the words of the old covenant today, they can not see the truth. The same veil is still over their hearts. The veil stays over their hearts because God takes it away only when someone starts to believe in Christ.

₁₅Yes, to this day there is still a veil over the hearts of the people of Israel when they read the laws of Moses. ₁₆Every time someone turns to the Lord, the Lord takes away the veil. ₁₇When we say ‘the Lord’, we mean ‘the Spirit’. Where the Spirit of God works, there people become free. ₁₈We no longer have a veil over our hearts. We can see the glory of the Lord Jesus and it is wonderful. The glory of the Lord shines on our faces and the Spirit makes wonderful things happen to us too. That is why we become more and more like kings and we become more like the Lord Jesus.